The Effects of Environment and Culture on the Distribution of Prehistoric Dwellings at Chimney Rock Mesa, Colorado

Abstract

This study examines the roles of cultural change, social status, and natural resources in influencing both the siting and occupance of prehistoric (10th-12th century) pit house and pueblo dwellings in the Chimney Rock Archaeological Area (CRAA) in south-western Colorado. The study first demonstrates a prominent bimodal clustering of riverine pit house and mesa-top pueblo settlements, and then presents a number of hypotheses to account for the eleventh century pit house to pueblo transition which resulted in these disparate dwelling distributions. It is concluded that: indigenous social factors (population growth and craft specialization) initiated the housing transition; on-going population increase and the arrival of colonists from nearby Chaco Canyon by the mid-eleventh century perpetuated the building of upland dwellings; and the thin soil layer of the mesa top restricted construction to only surface pueblos, which contrasted spatially with the older pit houses of the lower alluvial plain.